


Watch the Sun Rise

by AllThoseOtherWorlds



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Hope, Introspection, Optimism, sunrise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-13
Updated: 2014-05-13
Packaged: 2018-01-24 13:40:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1607144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllThoseOtherWorlds/pseuds/AllThoseOtherWorlds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam likes to watch the sun rise sometimes. As he does, he thinks about his life, and manages to find hope for the future.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watch the Sun Rise

**Author's Note:**

> **Disclaimer: I do not own Supernatural. I do not make money from this.**
> 
> **Comments and constructive criticisms are always welcome! Even if you didn't finish reading the piece, I'd like to know what you did and/or didn't like**
> 
> **Loosely based on a Story a Day prompt requiring one or more characters to be doing some kind of action.**
> 
> **Takes place at some point in season nine after Dean has the Mark and Gadreel is gone.**

                Sam wakes up at 5:57 AM to a dark and quiet room, as usual. He doesn’t set his alarm – hasn’t set his alarm since Stanford, and hasn’t needed to. Instead he wakes on his own time, usually early, sometimes not.

After a late hunt, or while he was sick from the Trials, he slept later, although he was still always tired during the Trials. Today, though, he wakes early, and in five minutes he is standing outside the bunker gazing at the lightening sky.

                He likes sunrises, and always has. When he and Dean were younger and still travelling everywhere with John he would try to slip past their sleeping forms in the mornings to watch it. There was something about the flush of colours spreading out across the brightening horizon that captivated him.

                Maybe it’s the way the colours change, the way pale pink flushes into bright magenta and red, then lightens to orange and yellow before fading into blue. All of the colours are beautiful, not painful, and it’s nice to think that things can change without always getting worse.

                Sam settles down cross-legged onto one of the rocks perched on a hill near the bunker’s entrance and watches. It starts slowly, as it always does: the sky is still dark, but it’s more of a grey than a black, and the sky in far distance is slowly lightening.

                Sam thinks of his childhood, and of the days spent in fear that Dean and John would be hurt – or worse – on a hunt, and the pressure from his father to be _this_ , be a hunter and nothing more, and the persistent feeling that there was something _wrong_ with him. He thinks of the acceptance letter from Stanford, and what he’d hoped that would mean.

                The horizon shows a bright line of gold now, and the clouds scattered around it are illuminated in bright pinks and reds. Sam thinks of Jess, and of college assignments and parties and the rhythm of fingers on a keyboard at midnight trying to finish an essay. He thinks of kisses and dates and shared memories. He thinks of fire.

                The first hints of the sun are visible now in a bright rounding just hinting over the horizon. It almost hurts his eyes to look at, and Sam thinks of angels. He thinks of demons in his blood and knives in his back, and demons at the crossroads and demons torturing Dean. He thinks of getting Dean back and meeting Castiel, feeling the tingle of Grace for the first time. He thinks of a handshake, and “the Boy with the Demon Blood”

                The sun is half up, and Sam has to squint and shift his attention away, focusing instead on the mists of haze stained orange by the light. Higher, above the sun, is a mass of cloud that has split itself off into strands and draped itself around the sun, close enough to change colour, but not so close as to obscure any of its light.

                The clouds are bright crimson, and it looks like a warning.

                Sam thinks of blood. He thinks of sulfur and heat and promise and desire and _power_. He thinks of change. When he could exorcise demons with his mind he knew he was _doing_ something, and that for perhaps the first time in his life he had the power to change something. He remembers exorcising Samhain, killing Alistair, saving Dean and Cas and, less importantly, his own life. He thinks of detox and pain and warning. He thinks of Lucifer. He thinks of falling.

                The sun is three-quarters of the way risen now, but Sam squints resolutely against the glare. The red of the clouds has faded into a softer tone of pink now, and the haze of orange has floated up a bit, mingling with the darker puffs of colour. It’s hard to tell where one cloud ends, and the next begins.

                Sam thinks of the Cage. He thinks of torture and pain and Grace. He thinks of freedom, of release and hope and more chains. He thinks of hallucinations, his own mind bearing his brother’s face. His own mind bearing the image of the Devil. He laughs a bit at that, just because of how ironic it isn’t. He thinks of what it felt like when the world was finally clear, and he finally knew for certain where he was and who he was and what was going on.

                He misses that.

                The sun is almost up now and the clouds have flared into shades of orange and yellow, soon to drift back to their usual white. Only a sliver of the bright curve of gold that is the sun still rests below the swell of the Earth obscuring it. It is so close to being free.

                Sam thinks of gutting a hellhound, and rescuing Bobby from Hell. He thinks of Dean, of convincing his brother that he _could do this_ and trying to convince himself at the same time. He thinks of gold strands weaving themselves up his arm. He thinks of purifying energy flowing into him at the same time as life energy is flowing out of him, and of how good it felt to think that he could ever be _clean._

He thinks of the last trial, standing there in that room with Crowley waiting for his blood and Dean begging him not to give it. He thinks of the confession, and of the pain, and of the promise he’d seen just out of reach. He knows there’s no going back from the choice he made, but that doesn’t stop him from turning the moment over and over, thinking again and again of just how _close_ he was.

                The sun is up completely now, and a sliver of incredibly pale blue is visible below it. The clouds are mostly fading to white, but if Sam looks closely he can see hints of other colours inside them still – yellows and pinks, mostly, but one cloud is still refusing to give up its bright red hue.

                Sam thinks of Gadreel, and of all the little things he should have noticed, all the time that he just mysteriously lost. He thinks of the second life Gadreel had created for him inside his own head when he got too troublesome, and of the confusion he still has about which things happened in which world.

                He thinks of Dean, and the Mark of Cain, and betrayal. He thinks of worry and words that have different meanings to very different people. He thinks of the power that he has never really had over his own life, much less over that of his brothers, and of how untrue the reverse is. He thinks of every time Dean has kicked him out and let him back and resurrected him. He thinks of the amulet, sitting at the bottom of some motel trash can.

                As the last colour fades from the clouds and the sky settles down into the blue that will probably persist throughout the day, Sam thinks of the future.

                He thinks of peace, and a life that he doesn’t really think he’ll get but can never completely let go. He thinks of safety and control and communication. He thinks of purity. He thinks of hope, and how it would be wiser to just never let it come back.

                It always does, though, and he thinks that’s how he’s gotten even this far without breaking more than he already has. He needs it. He needs to think that there’s a chance for them, that despite everything he is and everything they’ve been raised to be, happiness is possible.

                Sometimes he forgets, and when he does he likes to watch the sunrises. Each one is different, and it helps him remember that each day is different, and that the quality of the sunrise doesn’t really indicate the quality of the day ahead of it.

                It gives him hope.


End file.
